Services

Let’s Start Marketing!!

RENT HIGH OR RENT FAST?

Which is better, rent for a high monthly amount vs the market or rent the home quickly?  It largely depends on your goals, but if making money is your goal, renting your home quickly is by far your best option

Nearly every property in every neighborhood has solid demand at a price. If your vacancies are consistently high, or it is taking longer than a month to rent your property, you may be doing it to yourself and need to think about your price point.

Every month of vacancy costs you 8.3% of your potential yearly revenue, so you would be better off renting every property one month faster for 5% less rent, two months faster for 10% less rent, and so on.

Another way to think about vacancy is this. If a property does not have some characteristic that sets it apart from the rest and sells itself such as a prime location or a to-die-for kitchen, you can give it one by providing the best value in town.

Based on an average market rent of $1,500 per month, you are better off financially to rent your home at $1,425 rather than let the home sit for a month longer than is necessary

IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT PRICE

There are many factors that go into determining rent price, most of which are listed below.  However, if the home is well marketed, the prospect can easily book a showing and the showing schedule is flexible, but the home is not renting, the reason almost always comes down to three barriers:

Marketing and How We Will Communicate our Marketing Efforts

Marketing a home for rent may feel a lot like the marketing process when selling a home and in fact, many of the marketing functions are the same.  However, there are key differences. 

• We receive feedback based on activity and data, not by an “offer to rent”
• Back and forth price negotiation rarely happens
• The vast majority of the leads from prospective tenants come in the first three weeks
• The process is very dynamic with frequent application complexity

Selling a home is a BIG DEAL and so is renting your home. However, because this rental process is so dynamic with daily interactions with prospective tenants  and the number of showings that far exceed your typical real estate transaction, it is impossible to notify you of all activity as it happens.  Instead you can expect the following:

• You will receive a weekly marketing update with the previous week showing data recommended actions
• You will not receive communication after each showing, rather, we will reach out to you between your weekly updates if we need approvals, have questions or have important information to share
• Of course, you can call and speak to your leasing agent at anytime during office hours and we WILL call you back promptly
• Your home will be advertised on all syndicated sites, craigslist posting with frequent posting refresh, and our website
•  For Rent sign(s) (if allowed) marketing flyers inside the home and third party leasing agent notification
•  Weekly property checks to ensure security, cleanliness, and flyer refresh

Applicant Screening

To best protect you from the potential risk of applicant discrimination and to ensure we are following all fair housing laws, credit reporting, and sensitive information gathering rules and regulations, you will not be involved in the direct applicant screening and approval process.  The time to be involved is before we sign the client management agreement by reviewing our screening and approval process and getting comfortable and confident in our ability to properly screen applicants.  We are not able to provide you with specific applicant detail such as credit score/information, criminal background or reference information.  However, we recognize the need for you to know who is living in your rental property and you are entitled to a copy of the lease agreement, which we will provide at your request

Ongoing Communication

The third and final step in these initial stages, will be to connect with a member of our Owner Support Team.  In the next few days, you will receive a call from our office to review where we are in the process and confirm important information such as rent ready preparation and approval of maintenance work. Most of all, this is a chance for you to ask any follow up questions you may have and to make sure you know what will happen next.  We encourage you to make time for this important connection.

Let’s Talk Maintenance (yes, something will eventually break!)

Of all the tasks and issues we will address, coordinating the effective repair of a maintenance issue can become the most complex.  It’s never fun to hear about a costly repair, but as a rental property owner, you must be prepared for the inevitable maintenance issue, both financially and mentally.  To best prepare for, and to properly set expectations, let’s break this topic down into a few big buckets:

Let’s work together to minimize maintenance issues in the first place

Before you move out and certainly before a tenant moves in, complete the Rent Ready Checklist, make necessary repairs and then sign your acknowledgement and provide it to Real Property Management Solutions. By doing so, we can catch many of the maintenance issues and the associated costs before the resident moves in

 As part of the move in process, residents are put on “high alert” in regards to their responsibility, so they are looking for issues that were perhaps not noted or missed during the move in process. Secondly, as they settle in, they are experiencing the home for the first time. Even though a resident rents the home “as is” this unique environment can cause a series of maintenance requests in the initial weeks of a resident’s tenancy.  We ask that you stay calm and know that we have your best interests at the center of all we do. Let’s work together to make the residents’ experience the best it can be while cost effectively maintaining the condition of your investment. Our experience shows that eventually, this will settle down.

Owner, Resident and Agent Maintenance “Bill of Rights”.

Unlike many facets of property management, maintenance coordination involves all four parties in the process and each one typically wants something different.  Owners want the most cost-effective solution, Residents want the repair fixed quickly, and the Agent wants to coordinate a resolution efficiently while satisfying both Owner and Resident,  and the vendor just wants to get in, get It fixed and get paid.  Simply said, it’s complicated!!  We think of this topic in terms of a

Maintenance Bill of Rights

As an Owner, you have a right to:

• Transparent invoicing and accurate billing.  We will send you the vendors’ invoice and we will correct any invoice mistakes
• Qualified, licensed, bonded and insured vendors working on your rental investment
• Ask questions, get answers and have confidence the issue has been resolved
• Effective communication throughout the process
• To approve all maintenance expense at or above the agreed upon maintenance limit before work begins
• 24/7 emergency hotline to ensure your investment value, to the degree possible, is maintained

Residents have a right to:

• A residence that is maintained in a habitable condition according to State, City and County regulations
• An effective means to report maintenance issues
• Effective communication throughout the process
• An effective repair of items that were working when they moved in
• Repairs that are resolved within 30 days for non-essential and 7 days for essential services
• Respect of personal property, space and personal time
• 24/7 emergency hotline to report emergencies

As Agent, we have a right to:

• Effective communication throughout the process
• Pre-approval to repair issues below the maintenance limit as we see fit as outlined in the agreement
• Quick approval of maintenance above the maintenance limit once owner questions have been answered
• Payment in full within 30 days of satisfactory repair

Thanks again for your business, we can't wait to get started!

TXX1 Property Management Solutions Team